Gradients
by Adia7
Summary: A series of short pieces chronicle the reaction of staff and patients at PPTH after the confrontation between House and Chase at the end of Finding Judas with emphasis on the strained relationship between House and Chase themselves.


DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations in the following story do not belong to me. I wrote this story for fun, not for profit.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I try to avoid these, but this story needs a little explanation. It's a collection of linear drabbles, double drabbles, and one triple drabble that starts just after Chase leaves Wilson at the end of "Finding Judas" and ends a little ways into "Merry Little Christmas." There are spoilers for both of these episodes.

**Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they? (Mt 6:26)**

I. THE PATIENT

Alice was pale. Chase could barely hear her thin voice over the beeping monitors, and her beautiful hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat. But she was whole. The ache in his jaw seemed inconsequential as gently took her vitals. A nurse could have done it, but there was no way that Chase was letting anyone else near the little girl that night. As he finished taking her temperature, Alice whispered, "Dr. Robbie?"

He settled on the edge of the bed so that Alice could look at him as they spoke. He doubted that she was strong enough to raise her head.

"They didn't cutted off my arm and leg."

"No."

"Mommy said that if they didn't cutted off my arm and leg, I'd die."

"Oh, no, no, love," Chase reassured her. He smoothed her hair and chafed her arm with his warm hands (unusually warm for a doctor's). "The surgeon didn't cut off your arm and leg because we figured out another way to make you better."

"Another surgery?"

"Just medicine, I promise."

"Really? Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" She wrapped her good arm around Chase's neck, and he choked down a sob while she couldn't see.

II. THE HOSPITAL

House's fellows are almost as infamous as the diagnostician himself, not only because of their brilliance, or their chutzpah (at least that's what Dr. Cuddy called it), but also because of their loyalty to a drugged-out lunatic. So the night after House nearly cut a girl in half, their appearance in the back of the nearest bar to the hospital turns a few residents' and med students' heads. They sat at a booth in the back of the bar, not laughing, not arguing, not running mock differentials (because they were nerds, and everyone knew that, too).

Dr. Chase sat between Dr. Cameron and Dr. Foreman. He rested his head on the table, and he looked like he was asleep. He must have been talking, because he was shaking his head, and Dr. Cameron was rubbing his back as she wiped her tears. But everyone knew that Dr. Cameron overreacted, and Dr. Chase was a rich kid. They didn't really think that anything was wrong until the clinic evening shift arrived and began to circulate their rumors. When Dr. Chase finally raised his head, he let Dr. Cameron snuggle against him and Dr. Foreman chafe his forearm. Dr. Chase didn't speak.

III. CHASE

"You should have someone look at that."

It took Chase a moment to realize that House was addressing him. He'd never wanted to speak again, had hoped that more time would pass before it was required of him. He'd felt so safe for so long—been so stupid for so long—that it was taking longer to recover. Reluctantly, he raised his hand to his jaw and mumbled, "I'm fine."

That was the right answer, he knew. That was the answer that would forestall the explosion, at least for a few more hours.

It was a lie—but everybody lies.

IV. CUDDY

"You would be within your rights to sue him."

"There's no reason." He tried to sound convincing, though there was no chance she'd be won over.

Cuddy shook her head and shooed the lawyer from the room with a shake of her head. When the door closed, the Dean of Medicine said, "Foreman used to say that House had given you and Cameron Stockholm Syndrome."

The smile was painfully wan, the words simple and politely insistent. There was nothing she could do because he only said, "I'm fine, Dr. Cuddy."

"I'm sure you are, Dr. Chase."

Everybody lies, they remembered.

V. FOREMAN AND CAMERON

"How'd you get so good at this?" Foreman asked in undisguised awe as Chase made the m in _mood _and the e in _rake _into _mosque _and hit a triple word score, widening the margin between himself and Foreman by fifty-seven points.

Chase laughed, but it was a soft half-sound, not the delighted sort of chuckle that they were used to hearing. "It helped my dad learned English. We used to play it all the time."

This announcement sent Cameron laughing, not forced or screechy. When the men stared at her, she explained, "Sorry, I just saw it in a movie… um… Jennifer Lopez's dad learned English by playing Scrabble, and she was, like, a Scrabble whiz."

"Jennifer Lopez is the one with the huge ass, right?" Chase asked Foreman quietly as Cameron giggled.

"There's nothing wrong with the lady's ass!" Foreman protested.

"It's not in proportion to the rest of her body, unless she's having an allergic reaction."

"I just meant that it was cute…"

Cameron's clarification, combined with House's all-too-timely entrance, set Foreman off. "Chase's ass?"

"Oh, bloody hell," Chase grumbled, and he rested his face in his hands to hide the rising blush instead of the bruise.

VI. TRITTER

When the NICU door slammed shut behind Tritter, Chase hushed the preemie with a few soothing, nonsensical sounds. A look of horror on his face, as clearly manufactured as the plastic tubing in the child's arm, Tritter asked, "What happened to your face, Robert?"

"Took an elbow playing football." He told the convincing lie, his voice moderated and gentle for the baby, but his eyes fixed coldly on Tritter's face.

"I can't protect you if you lie to me," Tritter said.

Eyes frozen, Chase didn't reply, and the police officer walked away in a huff.

Everybody lies, Chase thought proudly.

VII. WILSON

"Dr. Wilson? Could I have a word, please?"

When Wilson looked at Chase, he saw anger barely disguised by the respect that a lowly fellow—even one of House's favored--had to hold for a department head. "What's going on, Chase?" Wilson asked.

"House needs an oncologist for a biopsy."

"He sent you to ask?"

"I'm the only one of us who's talking to you right now."

"I was trying to help him."

"Good job," Chase snapped. He left Wilson's office without closing the door behind himself, the rudest response he could form.

House would've been disappointed, he thought forlornly.

VIII. HOUSE

They had been sitting together at the long glass table for an hour. House had built a house of cards and begun on a garage when an overly perky pediatric nurse had appeared with candy left from the ward's holiday party. Wendy's doing, Chase guessed. Between annoyed and amused, House had accepted the bag of M&Ms and glared until the nurse ran away. House sorted the candy into piles according to color. In one swallow, he downed all the blue, then all the yellow. He looked appraisingly at Chase before he said magnanimously, "You can have the green."

And Chase smiled.

VIII. HOUSE OR GOD

Years ago, he'd have been at vespers in Melbourne, kneeling between Michael and Danny, mumbling prayers he'd been saying as long as he could speak. But instead Chase was passing rosary beads through his fingers, letting the repetition, the sweetness of the words, the familiarity, the commiseration warm him as the familiar words fell from his lips.

A hand on his shoulder interrupted Chase in his fourth decade. Blearily, he raised his gaze to see House standing over him. For the first time in a week, the sight did not even remotely discomfit him.

"I will say this once," House said, "and I'll deny having said it to anyone who isn't in this room right now. Got it?"

Was House still angry? Was this going to be that bad? Or worse, did House think that Chase would run to Tritter about something as trivial as a punch to the face? Nervously, Chase nodded.

"Say you understand."

"I understand, Dr. House."

"You had a good day the other day, a good day, not your best. You'll have better days because you are a good doctor. Better than your father."

Chase started, his fingers tightening convulsively around the rosary between his fingers. Thank you wasn't enough, and although he had a vague sense that he should be offended that House would compare him to his father, or that House should speak so disrespectfully of the dead, Chase couldn't summon the affection—or even filial respect--to care.

"Someday maybe better than me."

"I wasn't trying to be..." _Arrogant? A suck-up? Good enough?_

"Yeah," House said. He was almost out the door when he stopped. He didn't turn back, didn't even flick his eyes back toward Chase. "That's exactly my point."

Before Chase could turn around, the door was swinging shut behind House.

X. GOD

He'd been in the chapel for so long that legs had cramped. Since House's words twelve hours ago, the chapel had been silent. A sense of peace he'd known at monstrous intervals since seminary warmed Chase completely. He couldn't really feel his body. Usually obscenely active, his brain was still. Although nothing made sense, not Tritter's obsession with House, not Wilson's betrayal, not his stupid loyalty, it didn't matter because Chase trusted. It was a glorious and awful thing to feel completely his dependence on a Power that, for twenty-eight years of trying, he couldn't understand—and that was okay.


End file.
